


i saw the light fade from the sky

by KaavyaWriting



Series: where the road then takes me [1]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: (thorin & fili & kili), Angst, Canon Compliant?, Canon character deaths, Grief, I just fudged one or two little details basically, M/M, am I supposed to warn for canon character deaths that happen before the story starts?, mild cultural differences if you squint - Freeform, ninety percent canon compliant, post-BotFA, stubborn dwarves are stubborn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-08-11 03:38:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7874731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaavyaWriting/pseuds/KaavyaWriting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dwalin wants a word with Bilbo. The trouble is Bilbo knows what he would say, and he doesn't want to hear it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i saw the light fade from the sky

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prequel/companion piece to _on the wind i heard a sigh_. I wrote it in a rush today, and tomorrow I will probably regret posting without editing, but nonetheless here it is! :) Would you believe this happened because I wanted to write fluff? WTF self? This is what I get for watching the trilogy again.

"Ye can't mean to go."

Bilbo held back his sigh as the gruff tones caught up to him. "If you must know, I couldn't possibly think to stay." All he wanted to do was leave. For days, weeks now. What was the point in staying?

Dwalin's hand fell onto Bilbo's shoulder like the end of something, though Bilbo would have been hard pressed to name what, had he given it any thought. As it was, it was most important to end this quickly—the conversation, Bilbo's presence… Surely that would be best for all concerned, not least of all Bilbo.

Dwalin's fingers squeezed gently around his shoulder, a surprisingly heartfelt gesture that was still strong enough to cause the faintest twinge of pain. Bilbo finally stopped walking, turning to look back at his friend. One of his dearest friends now, though he would never have imagined such a thing all those months ago when Dwalin knocked on his door with a fierce glare in place and ate all his supper. His father's simple yet secret recipe for lemon-seared fish.

Dwalin was the first Dwarf Bilbo had ever met, and quite a rude experience it had been too. He smiled wanly at the memory.

"Surely no one honestly expected me to stay. I doubt anyone _wants_ me to stay."

That was a lie, and they both knew it. He'd been asked to stay, by the Company, by others—not many, but enough.

Enough to know, to feel the weight of it like stone after stone piled atop him.

"Load a horse shit, that. The entire Company wants ye here." Never one to mince words was Dwalin.

"The Company, yes," Bilbo admitted against his better sense. "No one else—"

"Dain likes ye well enough, for a halfling."

"Hobbit." A correction of habit, not really an objection anymore. "Few others then."

Dwalin's shoulders lifted and fell in a shrug. "Seems the only one who doesn't want ye to be here is yerself. So why are ye leaving?"

"That's not reason enough?" Bilbo turned away, shrugging out from under Dwalin's hand to resume his hurried trek along the walkway leading toward the throne. It was an entirely absurd style that all Dwarves seemed to so enjoy: a bridge without rails and a bottomless drop to either side. Bilbo was surprisingly used to it after three weeks of trudging back and forth across it at least once a day.

Apparently it was only proper to hold meetings with the ambassadors of Mirkwood and Laketown in the throne room—at least while the council rooms were in shambles—and who was Bilbo to snub tradition? (Never mind that the Shire must still be reeling from Bilbo's impromptu vanishing act. Gossip and stories would no doubt buzz through the Shire long after his return, a warning to others on the dangers of stepping toe past the Bounds.)

"Lad," Dwalin started again, following behind him with more confidence than Bilbo had felt in the last month put together.

Bilbo quickly cut him off. "I can't, Dwalin. I simply… I can't stay here. Not now. Not without… Well." He grimaced at the ornate stone throne, the empty setting that once cradled the Arkenstone, now entombed with the true heart of the mountain.

It wasn't as though no one had asked what he wanted. They did, they knew, they cared. They would let him go when the time came for it. But they didn't understand it. Bilbo's innate nature clashed with theirs, a cultural gap that may never be crossed. Duty and honor and love tied inexorably together in ways Bilbo only began to understand as he followed Thorin to the end. Chasing after until went where Bilbo could not follow.

Bilbo's eyes burned, and he knew he wasn't getting enough sleep. Even without Balin reminding him every evening as they went over the day's events with a nice pot of Dori's tea. _Where_ Dori got the tea, Bilbo hadn't the faintest, but he appreciated his friend's ingenuity.

Sleep. He needed sleep.

Bilbo felt caught afresh in a morass of confusion, thoughts twisting out of his grasp and running off before he could get a proper hold of them. It was eerily reminiscent of those long, exhausting days wandering Mirkwood, lost and starved and slowly poisoned by the very air they breathed, thick with ill enchantment.

The grunt Dwalin gave yanked Bilbo's thoughts back into focus. It was a very opinionated grunt that told Bilbo Dwalin had a lot to say about the matter. Of Bilbo's leaving, that was, not his increasingly alarming sleep deprivation.

Was this what Thorin had felt, in the end? Days, weeks with the least sleep he could manage, his thoughts ever on a ramble somewhere else, away from the here and now. Or had the madness dragged Thorin so far under even exhaustion could not seep into his frenzied mind?

But Thorin had broken through the madness. The dragon's spell on the gold that affected them all without their noticing. Thorin had thrown it off, in the end. If only that had been enough? Why hadn't it been enough?

It was unfair. Stories never ended this way.

"Bilbo," Dwalin began again, sounding for all the world like he didn't know what to say, but he would say it anyway. Bilbo was quite sure he wasn't going to like it, Dwalin's direct, Dwarvish opinions on where Bilbo stood, the precipice everyone wanted him to blindly leap off.

If he leapt, there would be no coming back.

But then, that was already true.

Bilbo glanced to Dwalin, however reluctantly. He wondered how he had ever missed Dwalin's clearly exuded opinions before. Staring at Dwalin these days was less like staring at a blank wall and entirely like staring at an explicitly rude book. Bilbo wasn't sure he liked the change.

And the mad thing was, it wasn't Dwalin who changed. It was _Bilbo_ of all the ridiculous things. He almost understood Bifur, for Eru's sake. And that was more than half a lie, considering the last conversation he'd had with Bifur had nearly been a conversation, one where Bilbo found himself agreeing with every mumbled word and flick of Bifur's fingers.

The Dwarves have had an awful effect on him. What would his father say to this? Bungo would be rolling in his grave to see his son consorting with Dwarves.

Understanding Dwarves.

_Agreeing with Dwarves._

…marrying one.

Being a consort, a widowed consort now considered Regent Consort, to whom all Dwarves were coming to for advice, for rulings. Even Men, even _Elves_ looked to him to help decide the fate of the East.

Bungo would never have chosen this for his son. Bilbo would never have chosen it for himself either. In likelihood, neither of them would have ever been able to imagine it. Well, now Bilbo could. He could picture every detail, a life spent cold, missing a family he'd had bare seconds, missing a Dwarf he'd fallen in love with too quickly.

Bilbo's breath was coming in shorter. He could _feel_ the panic attack sinking its claws in, empty darkness playing around the corners of his eyes.

There was Dwalin's hand again, gripping under his arm just as Bilbo's knees went a little weak, hauling Bilbo off the last foot of walkway, away from the dangerously long fall. He guided him up the slightly-too-steep stone steps and all but shoved him down onto a hard stone seat, and Bilbo let him, and gladly.

Bilbo dropped his head to his knees, trying to take deep breaths, mostly failing. The hand didn't move, a comforting pressure. Or comforting in Dwalin's own way, which amounted to the same these days.

The hand didn't move as Bilbo got his breathing back under normal, an anchor to the world that was impossible to ignore. As Bilbo failed to faint away—the last time he'd done that was Bag-End, wasn't it? A spring night when he hadn't contemplated the wider world since he was a fauntling. When he'd met a rowdy, mistrustful group of Dwarves, a group he'd most certainly not trusted in return. When Thorin's first words to him had been insult, and he was so certain of Bilbo's death on the road he'd been relieved when Bilbo had refused the contract.

It was a lifetime ago.

Gandalf had been right in that, to say the least: he could never go back.

Bilbo's breath hitched. No, there was no going down memory lane or he _would_ fall to pieces. He didn't think Dwalin would appreciate a fainting Regent Hobbit Consort, especially when Balin would bustle in with paperwork and Ori would hustle in Bard…

Dwalin was clearing his voice conspicuously loudly, no doubt wishing to finish their conversation. Bilbo seriously considered ignoring him, ill-mannered as that certainly was! Nothing good lay down that path. Just like nothing good lay in _venturing East_ , Bilbo snorted to himself in unsettled amusement, his father's disgruntled face flashing before his mind's eye. Bungo had most often made that face when Bilbo's younger self had gone on about the adventures he would one day have, worrying his father to no end. And here he was, wasn't he?

"Ye're welcome to leave at any time." Dwalin's voice broke through Bilbo's contemplation of whether he should poke the sleeping beast at all. Apparently Dwalin was not giving him any choice in the matter.

"Why do I hear a large 'but' looming over that sentence?" Bilbo asked. Dwalin's smirk had him hurrying on, "never mind the lewd jokes about rear ends, please."

Dwalin gave a great snort of amusement. "And that's why ye're needed here. Bit o' propriety and cheer in the upcoming years." He looked down on Bilbo in dark amusement, pointedly stepping back to stand behind Bilbo's right shoulder. "Never mind that ye took on the responsibility. Will you shirk yer duty now, after vowing yerself to our king and kingdom?"

Bilbo stiffened, that brief piece of happiness in Laketown washing up to the fore of his mind before he firmly pushed it back down where it belonged: out of sight, out of memory, a place buried deep where he would not have to face what he—they all—had lost any more than he absolutely had to. "That was completely uncalled-for." And underhanded.

Dwalin seemed to latch onto the unspoken half of the sentence rather than the spoken. "We're yer friends, and we're yer subjects now, like it or not. We are kin, bound together in loyalty and oaths. In blood. _Ye've_ bound yourself. The others won't say it, not after everything we've gone through, but leavin' now would be leavin' yer obligation to us. We none of us would judge ye for it, for we understand better than most the cost of enduring, but I think ye owe yourself more than that. To see this through. Ye deserve that much."

"To see Erebor through, you mean," Bilbo said, still stiff. If anything Dwalin's speech shot molten mithril down his spine more than anything else. He felt a muddled jumble of injury and strength all at once.

Dwalin's speech wasn't as pretty as Balin's, but it got under his skin a great deal more. Blast and confound all Dwarves everywhere.

It was typical, riling Bilbo up enough to make him stay. To defy expectations.

"It's what Thorin wanted. I think we both know that," Dwalin said.

Bilbo scowled. Blasted, twice-cursed Dwarves.

The hand on his arm squeezed lightly and let go. "Think about it, that's all I'm askin'."

There was no chance for Bilbo to respond, for at that very moment the distant doors groaned open and Ori stepped through with Bard and his four advisors. The lot of them were much like Bilbo, cast in a roles they didn't know how to play, expectations they couldn't possibly meet. Not yet.

Ori's voice rang out across the great expanse, "Bard, Lord of Dale."

Balin hummed thoughtfully at Bilbo's other side, freshly arrived from who-knew-where with a pile of papers thick as his arm. "Glad to see you taking initiative, laddie."

It was only then, when it was far too late to do anything about it, in Balin's presence and Bard's men bearing down on them, that Bilbo realized in the midst of his panic attack Dwalin had pressed him onto the king's throne, instead of the circle of chairs Bilbo had had placed off to the side for these ridiculous meetings.

He hissed out to Balin, "Consorts do not sit in the king's chair. Nor do regents!"

Balin was undoubtedly smirking behind his beard. "A newly minted Regent Consort may be forgiven the slip, particularly in face of his enthusiasm to put forward the best front to our allies."

Bilbo sighed. _Thrice_ -cursed Dwarves.

He knew it, somewhere down in his bones and in his blood, in the recesses of his mind he did not care to dredge up…

He would stay.

He could not be who he once was, no matter his effort.

There was no turning back from this road.


End file.
